The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-06-18

ion replied; "the child is not insane This
is little Jacopo, le fills du jour de ram
who is positively adored by the poorer
classes in this part of the country"
"Ihe Child Of the New Year!" 1 ex-
claimed, tanslating my friends remark.
"What singular name. What does it
all mean"
"Come with me-" said my companion.
"We'n proceed, il you please, to the
fish market where, no doubt, you will
find the fishwomen bowling and dancing
and throwing flowers on little Jacopo."
We proceeded to the Halle des Pois-
sons.
The sight that met my eyes was some
thing it would be very difficult to forget.
There stood the strange child with the
pure white hair, in the center of group
Of excited men and women, whose bare
arms showed that they had just left their
stalls. They were throwing flowers at
him and praising him in extravagant
terms. He, all the time took no notice
of them, but kept gazing before him, and
every few minutes exclaiming in kind
of ecstacy: "Claire ma Claire - His
dress was ngularly ne&t, but of colorless
white, while his long hair fell over his
shoulders untramelled by cap of any kind.
"That boy" said my friend, "has
wonderful story in connection with his
short life, and these poor people look up
on his presence among them as good
omen. At this moment they are blessing
him for that burst Of sunshine which, a
few moments ago, helped to make our
lazy life endurable up there at the Hotel
Christol."
In the drawing-room of our hotel my
friend told me the story of poor Jacopo:
Four years previous to the events here
narrated, Jacopo was left an orphan, to-
gether with his only sister Claire. Both
belonged to the Haute Vile that frowns
down upon us there, as if in it's pride OF
age it scorned this plebeian Bss Vile.
They became 30 attached to each other
that they we're inseparable, and the neigh
bors loved them for their beauty, their
innocence and their affection. The child
rem wandered hand in hand for hours
through the quiet old town. At times
they we're found playing among the sand
accumulated in front of the Porte Dune,
with its grim and heavy portcullised
gate; at others they played in front of
the queer little house where Godfrey de
Bouillon, the first crusader king of Je-
ruselum, thousand years ago was born;
but above all they loved to stroll through
the cathedral, gazing with awe at every
thing-the great gold candles, the splen-
did affairs, the valuable pictures of Christ
and the Mother OF Sorrows, the blue
spangled arched roof with the yellow
stars, and the gruesome offerings made
by patients who had been cured of NAL
aides by persistent appeals to some favor
tie saint. They even spent hours among
the crypts, where endless tombs and
few slots in the damp, bare walls made
everything look so weird and supernat-
urally solemn that, except in the day.
time, not even the bravest OF the resi-
dents Of the Haute Vile would venture
among them. These children, however,
were too innocent to know fear. And
SO they went along together hand in hand
through the grass-grown old streets Of
Godfrey's birthplace.
But one day Claire died; she was blonde
and Jacopo was dark. At first the child
Jacopo could not understand what had
become of his beloved eister. He saw
her little body strewn with fresh. cut
flowers, and the chaplet Of enow-white
flowers that surrounded her marble brow
where the yellow silk hair strayed down
freest. He touched her face and cried:
"Claire, ma Claire, why do you not speak
to me? 1t is only me, little brother ia
copo!" And when no answer came from
the little dead body, his paroxysms OF
grief became SO violent that the good
hearted neighbors said he would surely
kill himself, and carried him away.
One day the now utterly forlorn child
was walking, half sobbing, through mar
row old street, where queer gabled houses
cast fantastic shadows along the almost
forsaken thoroughtsre, and no sound dis
turbed the silence but the praise-singing
of some pious sister in one OF the con-
vents that abound in the Haute Vile
when vicious young man, known as lie
Savage" approached Jacopo and laugh
ed and TESTED at him for his weeping for
a mere girl.
"You ought to be girl yourself. II
you want to find CLAIRE, why do you not
go down to the crypt of the Cathedral at
midnight, and then you will find your
sister ?"
The child looked up with his large,
dark eyes flashing with the light of ex-
pectation.
"And shall truly find ma chere Claire
thereP" Jacopo asked.
"Of course you will, you little FOOL"
said the savage, as he ran off down one
of the ghostly streets of old Boulogne.
On that same night, the fat old sacris-
tan of the Cathedral was aroused from
his slumbers by hearing shrill cries is
suing from somewhere it the great edifice.
The hour was midnight. Father Hide
brand crossed himself, commended him